After originally being developed for the HBO Max streaming service, Batman: Caped Crusader recently found a new home on Prime Video, and it was confirmed shortly after that we'll be getting at least two seasons of the highly-anticipated animated series.
Bat-fans have been anxiously awaiting a teaser for the show, but it sounds like it may still be work in progress, as an unfinished sizzle reel screened today during the Annecy International Animation Festival.
Warner Bros. Animation, Cartoon Network Studios and Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe development trio Sammy Perlmutter, Audrey Diehl and Peter Giraldi were on hand to discuss what was shown, and it sounds like Caped Crusader is going to be quite a bit darker in tone than we realized.
"It’s everything that Bruce Timm wanted to do in the original series [the 1992 Batman, the Animated Series] but because it ran on a kid’s channel, he wasn’t able to do it. So this definitely skews older. It’s more of his complete vision,” Giraldi tells Variety.
The trade went on to offer a brief description of the "very early footage," which was "currently unlit, suggesting the series will be ultra-noir, with a series of character designs playing at Annecy to a pumping full orchestra score that suggested a brooding tone and a sense of the near psychotic in characters’ psychology."
The original Batman animated series could be pretty dark for a "kid's show" itself at times, so it'll be interesting to see how much further Timm, Matt Reeves, J.J. Abrams will be able to push the envelope with Caped Crusader.
In addition to Batman: Caped Crusader, Amazon recently picked up an original animated film, Merry Little Batman, and a spin-off series titled Bat-Family.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.